Feedback from more of the buyers included comments from Dubai’s largest garden centre chain, saying that it intends to work as a distributor for up to six of the UK companies that attended the event, in addition to sourcing products for its Dubai retail outlet from two of the other participating suppliers. The Dubai company is looking to expand its activities by setting up distribution across the GCC states – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and across the UAE, as well as India.

A similar reaction has been received from the French distributor who attended the event. Potentially the firm could be doing business with half of the companies it met at the ‘Meet the Buyers’ event. Other pet and garden product overseas buyers who participated expect to deal with up to five of the suppliers seen, and the specialist US mail order and online retailer that met with UK suppliers has stated that it is interested initially in sourcing products from three of the companies.

The positive reaction from the overseas buyers was echoed by the UK suppliers and the organisations that manned information desks at the event. Following their presentation, Factum Partners, which provides business improvement and growth strategies for SMEs, had been approached by a number of companies about their services to the US market, and representatives from both UKT Trade & Investment and UK Export Finance reported similar results.

The latest PetQuip and Gardenex ‘Meet the Buyers’ event was held on 2 March 2016 at Lea Marston Hotel, Sutton Coldfield. The date of the next ‘Meet the Buyers’ event is 8th June 2016 and it will be held at the Federation’s offices in Brasted, and a leading German mail order company has already confirmed attendance.